Bitcoin Adoption Could Be In For A Big Boost
Bitcoin adoption, getting people to exchange their bitcoins for goods and services, continues to be a problem for cryptocurrencies — but that could be about to change as the closely-watched Lightning Network continues to grow. Now, enterprising Spanish hardware hacker Ricardo Reis has shown how bitcoin's Lightning Network can be used to buy items (in this case bottles of Coca-Cola) from a vending machine. You can watch Reis's video, published over the weekend, here. The modified vending machine receives a bitcoin payment via a built-in QR code and through the Lightning Network. While this is still far from a commercial proposition, it demonstrates how the Lightning Network could allow small bitcoin transactions to happen on a much bigger scale than is currently possible.Bitcoin's Lightning Network creates a layer on top of the bitcoin blockchain, where transactions can be passed back and forth before being added to the underlying blockchain.This should mean transaction speed is greatly increased while costs are significantly reduced and the concept has been backed by bitcoin fan Jack Dorsey, the founder of micro-blogging site Twitter and U.S. payments processor Square.
